Reaccessing Scorpius
by queenb2369
Summary: Rose and Scorpius have been friends for years, but his breakup with her cousin and a night out with her cousins makes her realize that there might be more to them than 'simply friends.'


**Reassessing Scorpius**

_Bloody hell._

Rose groaned as she turned to peek at her clock before closing her eyes tightly shut, the persistent pounding of a fist on wood echoing in her ears.

_Maybe if I ignore him, he'll go away_, she thought even as she sat up, rolled out of bed, and padded groggily to answer it, knowing full well who was on the other side of the door and that ignoring him was not an option, and she resolved that whenever she was awake and more coherent, she was going to _finally_ remember to adjust the wards and give him a bloody key.

She resisted the urge to jerk open the door and growl, "You _do_ realize it's two o'clock, don't you?" instead opening it without production and, as she suspected, coming face to face with her best friend.

"Hi," he said quietly. He was clearly upset and looked awful – almost like he'd received zero O.W.L.s and his crup had died, rolled into one.

"Come on in." Rose covered her mouth with one hand as she attempted in vain to stifle a yawn while taking him by the arm and pulling him inside with the other. Scorpius threw himself onto her sofa and leaned back, covering his eyes with his arm. Without hesitation, she sat down next to him and placed her hand on his knee, waiting in silence for him to tell her what had happened this time.

"So she ditched me," he said finally, dropping his arm on the cushion with a thud and turning his face towards her.

_Not again_, Rose thought with a sigh, well aware that the 'she' Scorpius was referring to was her cousin, Roxanne, who she had suspected of stringing him along for months. But they had a history of breakups throughout the more than two years they'd been together – with some more lengthy than others – and she was sure it just a matter of time before they made up as they always had before. She rubbed his knee soothingly and reassured him, "Whatever she said, I'm sure she didn't mean it. The two of you'll be snogging again by tomorrow evening."

Scorpius shook his head. "No, it's really over this time." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, rubbing his face with his hands. "And it needs to be. All we do is row anymore."

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, even though she agreed wholeheartedly that it was for the best. A person would have been blind not to notice how strained things had been between the two of them for months.

"Thanks." He lifted his arm and motioned to her. Rose moved into his embrace, laying her head on his shoulder. "I know she's your cousin and –"

"Because of that," she placed two fingers over his lips, "I know how she can be. Besides, _you're_ my best friend, Scorpius, and at this moment, _you're_ the one I'm concerned about, not her." _Not to mention that she doesn't deserve you_, she added mentally.

Rose placed her hand on his chest and snuggled in closer to him, musing not for the first time that she was quite comfortable in that very spot as they sat in silence for a few moments. All the while, she internalized whether or not she should tell him what she was thinking, finally deciding, after mentally counting and realizing that it was the fourth time he'd come to her following a breakup with Roxanne, that it was something he needed to hear, even if he didn't want to hear it.

"Scorpius?"

"Hmm?"

"I need to…I want to tell you something that's…" She sat up just enough that she could look him in the eye. "Can I tell you something that's probably not at all what you want to hear but you need to and…just promise me you won't be mad, okay?"

"Okay," he replied slowly, clearly puzzled, and she nuzzled back against him, fitting her head in the crook of his neck, thinking it would be easier not to look at him.

"It's just that…I wonder if you don't try too hard when you fancy a woman, Scorpius. You always have, even before Roxy, but especially with her. You were always too accessible and entirely too eager to please."

Rose was forced to sit up when he did and she found herself facing a very befuddled-looking Scorpius. "Too accessible and eager to please?" he repeated. "You think I've been ditched because I was _too_ open with my feelings."

"Well, yes," Rose replied matter-of-factly. "You're too easy, and you're too obvious when you fancy someone. People don't fall in love with what's right in front of them. People want the dream – what they can't have. The more unattainable, the more attractive."

"I thought birds _wanted_ to know when a bloke fancies her." There was an edge to his voice and she knew she had hit a raw nerve.

"Yes, of course we do, but…it's a fine line, you see, at least for some women. They lose interest when it's too easy, and for whatever reason, that's the sort you seem to be attracted to."

"All right, so what do you suggest? Should I start acting like an arse and treating my girlfriends like shit? We both know how well 'that sort' worked for you, and I have no intention of ever treating any woman I care about the way he treated you –" He groaned, reacting immediately to her heavy sigh at his reference to Aaron Pucey, with whom she'd gone through a very painful break-up six months earlier. His arms closed around her and he pressed her face against his chest with his hand and held it there. "Fuck, Rose, I'm sorry…I should never have said that."

"Don't apologize, okay. It's fine. I know you didn't mean anything by it, and I also know that you'd rather A.K. Aaron than look at him." She half-chuckled against his chest. "I also know it's high time I get over myself and be well and truly over him once and for all, isn't it?"

His arms tightened around her. "I _hate_ that fucking prick, and I always thought you deserved better. If he had any sense at all, he'd have done whatever it took to hang on to you."

"I could say the same about you and Roxanne, you know…you deserve better than she ever treated you, and she's mental not to appreciate you and to let you go." She paused for a moment. "And what I said before…_I_ don't think you're too open. I think it's lovely how attentive and open you are. There _are_ women who would appreciate someone like you – you just seem to pick the sort who doesn't," she said quietly; although she wasn't really crying, a pair of tears snaked down her left cheek, and she reached up to wipe them away. "You know, don't you, that I really was trying to help? That I just want to see you happy, Scorpius?"

"I know. And I appreciate it, even if it doesn't always seem as if I do."

She wrapped her arm around his waist and felt him relax underneath her. She closed her eyes, thinking she would do so for just a moment, her breathing slowing in time with his. But as she was dozing off, she knew she was dreaming when she felt his lips on her forehead and his fingers brushing her cheek as she heard him muttering, "– and she just isn't you, Rose."

~*~*~*~*~

"And then Dad told him –"

Lucy paused and glanced up at the handsome dark-haired bloke standing beside her, her cousins' gazes following hers.

"Buy you a drink?" he asked, his eyes focused on Rose.

She smiled and lifted her nearly-full glass. "No, thanks. We're all set here, aren't we, ladies?"

"All set," Lily echoed, and Lucy simply nodded, an impatient look on her face.

"Another time then." The man turned and disappeared into the crowd surrounding the bar area and was just out of their sight when Lily and Lucy looked at one another and dissolved into giggles.

"So what's the count so far tonight? Three?" Lucy said, feigning irritation. "You're apt to break your own record for turn downs in one evening."

Rose shook her head and sighed. "Their attention has less to do with me or any of this," she gestured to herself, "and more to do with my lack of one of those," she concluded, nodding at the wedding band on Lily's finger.

"And what's my excuse?" Lucy held up a well-manicured, ringless left hand.

"I've no idea," Rose shrugged, "except maybe you still look like you're twelve." She winked at her cousin, who was rolling her eyes and really did look much younger than twenty-one. "Or perhaps there's no sense of desperation from either of you, whereas I'm practically oozing with it. No grandmothers breathing down your necks, constantly reminding you that you're twenty-five, that time is running out, and that all the proper men will be taken while at the same time reminding you that they would like to know their great-grandchildren before they die."

Lucy raised an eyebrow and looked as if she was going to speak, but Rose shook her head again. "And before you say anything, you at least have a boyfriend."

"Whereas our dear cousin has nary a prospect in sight," Lily teased, nudging Rose's arm with her elbow. "Although Lucy and I can attest that it isn't for lack of interest. We meet here for drinks every Friday, and week after week, we see the blokes that you turn down. And some of them are quite fetching, you know. Perhaps you shouldn't be so particular."

"Well, if my purpose for coming here week after week was to pick up random blokes, take them home, and shag their brains out, then perhaps I would have entertained the interest from one or two of them –"

"Perhaps you _should_ pick up some random bloke, take him home, and shag his brains out," Lily cut in, and Lucy nodded in agreement.

"I agree! How long has it been anyway, since you've had knee-buckling sex?"

"Entirely too long," Rose murmured before finishing the remainder of her drink in one gulp, the Firewhisky burning her throat. The fact of the matter was that she hasn't had _any_ sex, much less knee-buckling sex, since she stopped seeing Aaron Pucey months before, and while she hadn't any interest in men whatsoever for some time following that particularly awful breakup, she was now mostly over him and she wondered if a mindless shag wouldn't be a welcome occurrence.

"So, don't you think it's time?" Lucy asked. "There's more to life than working, Rose."

"Well, yeah –"

"Then it's settled." Lucy smirked and nodded matter-of-factly. "Tonight we find a match for you."

"Hang on," Rose interjected. "I don't _want_ a 'match,' Lucy. That's the last thing I need right now."

"Fine." Lucy rolled her eyes almost grudgingly at Rose then turned to Lily. "We need to find the most shaggable-looking bloke in the place. And certainly no one who might be 'relationship-material'."

Lily glanced around the room before turning back to Rose with a satisfied smile. "And I know _just_ the man."

Rose looked to the far end of the room where Lily was pointing. "No," she said pointedly, shaking her head and looking back to Lily in disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

Lucy spun around and grinned at Rose excitedly, practically squealing, "He's _perfect_!" as Lily replied, "I _am not_ joking."

"Scorpius?" Rose replied incredulously.

"Yes," her cousins replied in unison, and Rose shook her head again, looking at the both of them as if they'd sported horns.

"You're _actually_ suggesting that I shag my best friend?"

"Lily's right," Lucy said, her voice brimming with enthusiasm. "He would be perfect."

"He isn't perfect; _he's my friend_. And might I remind you that he just broke up with our cousin a few weeks ago –"

"No," Lily interrupted, "_she_ ditched him, and he was mental if he didn't see it coming. _Everyone_ knew it was only a matter of time. And anyway, that's why he's so perfect – the poor bloke is in need of comfort and who better to provide it than you?"

"I provide him with plenty of _platonic_ comfort, thank you." Rose had no intention of telling either of them that he'd shown up on her doorstep or that they'd ended up falling asleep together on her sofa or that she'd awakened the next morning sprawled on top of him, pretending to be asleep until he awoke and had been forced to move off of him or that she'd rather _liked_ waking up where she had and would not be opposed to doing it again.

Lucy rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Those are simply excuses and you know it. Besides, you can't tell me that you've never heard of 'friends with benefits'."

"And you have to admit that he's handsome," Lily added. "More so than any of the other blokes I've seen here tonight."

"Well…I never really thought about him that way," Rose replied, knowing that she wasn't being entirely truthful. Although he had been somewhat dorky in school, she had always _liked_ him that way and had been terribly disappointed a few years earlier when he'd rid himself of the glasses he'd always hated but she'd always loved. As they'd aged, he had grown into himself and while he wasn't what the average reader of _Witch Weekly_ might have thought good-looking, he had always been attractive to her. But she had never allowed herself to entertain thoughts of 'what if' too seriously; they had been friends for too many years. So although they spent most of their time together and she had wondered on many occasions whether her feelings for him weren't deeper than simply friends, she was unwilling to do anything to make things awkward, or worse, ruin their friendship.

"Come on, Rose," Lucy scoffed. "You've known him all these years and you expect us to believe that? I'm not sure I accept that nothing's ever happened between the two of you, not even a snog –"

"I'm sorry, but did you miss the part about him being _my best friend_, not to mention that he's been with our cousin for the past two years?" Rose asked and Lucy snickered.

"I've snogged blokes I considered friends before, and you were friends with him for years before he got together with Roxy."

"Well, nothing has ever happened between me and Scorpius," Rose countered rather defensively. There had been plenty of opportunities for things to progress if he had wanted them to – they were openly affectionate with each other, and she couldn't even begin to count the number of times he'd spent the night with her, falling asleep on her sofa. "But even if it had, snogging isn't the same as shagging, now is it? Besides, even if I wanted to, who's to say he would –"

"Now you're just being daft," Lily snickered. "Every bloke in here has looked at you, _including_ Scorpius. And we've all seen the two of you together. All it would take was one or the other of you to make the suggestion –"

"No, _you're_ being daft," Rose said. She was eager to change the subject away from Scorpius and was even considering entertaining – although not altogether seriously – her cousins' suggestion that she find a shaggable bloke when Lucy leaned forward and whispered, "Don't look now, but your _best friend_ is on his way over."

Rose jerked around and she grinned uncontrollably when she saw him. Lily was right – he _was_ quite handsome, and there was no questioning that if she'd allowed herself to, she would absolutely be attracted to him.

She stood and met him halfway down the bar, stepping into his arms and hugging him without a second thought.

"Hi," she said when she pulled back. "What're you doing here?"

"Waiting on my parents. And how is everyone this evening?" He motioned in the direction of her table, smiling and waving at Lily and Lucy, who grinned and waved back.

Rose rolled her eyes and giggled. "In rare form."

"Oh?" he asked, arching his eyebrow quizzically. "Anything exciting?"

"Not in the least," she fibbed, having absolutely no intention whatsoever about sharing the subject of their previous discussion _about him_ with him.

"What a pity," he teased as he squeezed her hand. His gaze moved shifted over her shoulder towards the door then returned back to her. "That's them. So, do you want to meet up with me later? I'll even let you drag me to the cinema."

"Really? The cinema?" She eyed him suspiciously. "What's got into you? You hate the cinema."

"But you don't," he replied, leaning forward and kissing her cheek. "I'll Floo over around eight o'clock." With a wink, he released her hand and she watched him cross the room and greet his parents, who had just entered through the back door, then turned and returned to her table, where Lily and Lucy were smirking and eyeing her smugly.

Rose took her seat and glared at the both of them, a blush rising over her cheeks. "Oh, shut it."

~*~*~*~*~

Rose waved goodnight to the healer-in-training relieving her, stepped onto the lift, and pressed the button for the ground floor, all the while fingering the folded up paper in her pocket containing Scorpius's note that he urgently needed to talk to her and asking her to meet him after her shift. She'd been sure from the moment she received it several hours earlier precisely what he wanted to speak to her about; had known upon hearing the news two days before at brunch with her family that his 'urgent' note would come sooner or later, and without hesitation, she had owled him back with a 'yes.'

Unsurprisingly, he was there when she exited St. Mungo's, lounging against a post, smoking a fag, and absentmindedly watching the cars drive by. She studied him as she pulled her cloak tightly around her shoulders, her heart fluttering when his lips closed around the tip and she imagined what it would be like to kiss him.

She blamed her cousins for putting the ideas in her mind; she couldn't deny that she'd _thought_ of it before, but since that night at the pub several weeks earlier when they'd suggested she and Scorpius should shag, Rose had thought of doing just that not only every time she saw him, but plenty of times when he wasn't around. Not to mention that she was finding it more and more difficult not allowing herself to _really_ think on her relationship with him in ways beyond friendship, but she _couldn't_, mostly out of fear that the affection and attraction she felt for him would continue to develop into something much deeper, something that he would never reciprocate, and she refused to threaten her place in his life, satisfied to be his friend rather than risk no relationship with him at all.

"Hullo you," she called and he turned abruptly, his lips curving into a smile. He extinguished his cigarette on the post and dropped it into a bin, and Rose tried not to notice how sexy he looked with his cheeks pinkened by the cold, striding toward her in his long overcoat, the light of the streetlamp behind him.

"Rose." Scorpius took hold of her arms before leaning in and kissing her cheek. He smelled of Firewhisky and tobacco, and despite the cold, his lips were warm, causing her to shiver. He slipped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, and Rose leaned against him as they walked to the Apparation point in the adjoining alleyway, not correcting his obviously mistaken belief that she was shivering from the cold. "Long day?"

She nodded. "Yes, but it was the last of four consecutive fourteen hour shifts, and now I'm off for four straight days."

"Ah, the schedule of a Healer," he chuckled. "So I take it you haven't eaten?"

"Not since this morning."

"I thought as much," he said as they turned into the dark, abandoned alleyway. "Then where do you want to –"

"We can do take-away," she said quickly; she couldn't imagine that he would be much in the mood for socializing after the news she was sure he'd received.

"You're sure you wouldn't rather go out?" He looked at her quizzically, and she shook her head.

"No, I'd rather just go home…unless you'd rather –"

He grinned and held up his hand. "No, if you'd prefer take-away, that suits me as well. But wouldn't you rather I go? After your day?"

"No, it's easier for me. You go on ahead to my flat, and I'll be there shortly."

"As you wish."

Rose watched him Disapparate before following suit, stopping first to pick up her favorite Chinese take-away from the restaurant down the block from her building before Apparating into the sitting room of her flat where Scorpius was sitting on her sofa, fiddling with the wireless.

"Did you know –"

"Yes, I'm aware it's still broken," she said, setting the food down on the table and Summoning plates from the kitchen as she tried not to think that she could get used to coming home to find him waiting on her. "And I know you've been after me, but I keep forgetting to get it fixed."

"Maybe I should just buy you a new one." He took the plate she offered but rather than eating, he set it on the side table and leaned back into the sofa. "So…I've talked to Roxanne."

Rose nodded, swallowing the bite she had just taken before answering. "I thought as much." She wasn't shocked that he sounded less than enthusiastic that his former girlfriend was getting married although she had expected him to be more upset than he appeared. "I thought about sending you an owl after she told us at brunch on Sunday, but I wanted to give her time to…I'd hoped she would tell you herself."

"Yeah, she owled on Sunday and asked to see me, but you know I'd gone to Barcelona with Mother and only got back last night. I finally saw her this morning, and she gave me the news."

"I'm sorry, Scorpius," Rose said, nudging his knee with hers as she set her plate on the coffee table.

"I'm not," he replied and chuckled when she looked up at him in disbelief. "I'll admit I was _surprised_ and it stung a bit. I mean, I dated her for almost two years, and she's been with this bloke for what – six weeks – and they're getting married? But when I congratulated her, I realized I meant it."

"I'm really happy to hear you say that. I was worried you'd be upset."

Scorpius shook his head. "You would think so, wouldn't you? But really, I'm not. Quite the opposite, in fact. My conversation with her only reinforced something that I should've admitted a long time ago."

"Oh yeah?" Rose studied him, delighted but still somewhat surprised by his reaction to the news and how different his mood was from what she had anticipated all day that it would be. "What's that?"

"That I don't want Roxanne. And I don't think I've wanted her for a long time, even there at the end when we were still together. In all the time we were together, I never once thought about marrying her." He stood and walked over to the window then turned back to face her. "Did she ever tell you why we broke things off?"

"No. But I never expected her to. You know the two of us aren't close –"

"It was because of you."

"Because of me?" she asked, stunned. "Why?"

Scorpius took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "She said she couldn't stay with me when I clearly wanted to be with someone else."

"With someone – else?" Rose whispered, her heart pounding in her ears as she sat frozen in place and waited for him to continue.

"That night, when she broke up with me, she accused me of being in love with you, even though I assured her that we were only friends. But once she'd gone, my first thought was how I needed to see you. Then I thought about what she'd said, and I realized that every time something went wrong with Roxanne, I came to you. Not surprising, of course, that I would come to you because you're my best friend, right? But that night, when I came here, it wasn't only because of her."

"But you never…why didn't you say anything?"

He crossed the room and sat back down beside her, taking her right hand between his. "Do you remember what happened that night? That we fell asleep and when we woke up, you were lying on top of me?" She nodded silently, her cheeks burning, and willed him to go on even as her mind was flooded with memories of that night and how it felt to wake up in Scorpius's arms the next morning.

"You have no idea how much I wanted to…" He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "All I did was hold you and watch you sleep. And it was the best night of my life. But it was also the worst night of my life because, for the first time, I let myself consider what Roxanne had said about being in love with you."

Rose's eyes fell to her lap and her heart clenched uncomfortably. "Why is that a bad thing?" she murmured, looking up when he squeezed her hand.

"It isn't. But for the first time, I could see us together – really together – and you'd never given me any indication that you wanted anything more from me, so I held my tongue and went on as if nothing had changed even though, for me, _everything_ had changed."

"Scorpius, I –"

She wanted to tell him that it had changed for her as well but he cut her off, placing his fingers over her lips. "I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you, Rose," he said. "For three months now, I've been pretending as if everything was as it's always been and questioning whether you could feel anything more for me, and I have _never_ stopped thinking about you. And all those nights when I've 'dropped by' or taken you out, knowing that you thought it was only as friends…it wasn't. I did that to make sure no other bloke could date you because I couldn't stand the thought of seeing you with someone else."

Rose's breath caught; she was astonished by his confessions and the happy coincidence that she could have just as easily admitted much of the same to him. "But…why didn't you tell me before? Why did wait until now?"

"You can't deny that things have changed between us. _I can feel it_. Don't you feel it?" There was almost a quiet pleading in his voice as she watched his fingers move to brush the hair back from her forehead and felt them caress her cheek.

She didn't speak at first, still stunned by his confessions. She reached up and covered his fingers with her own, nodding and then murmuring, "Yes," her heart swelling at the look of relief which crossed his face.

"I want to –" his free hand cupped her other cheek, and he took a deep breath as he leaned forward, whispering unnecessarily, "no, I _need_ to kiss you," before sliding his lips over hers.

~*~*~*~*~

With a feather-light touch, she slowly traced each letter along his shoulder, pausing to listen to his steady breathing before repeating the movements once more. After the revelations of the previous evening, followed by searching and then desperate kisses, leading up to hours of what could only be described as _unbelievably knee-buckling sex_, Rose had an overwhelming desire to mark him as 'hers' and she couldn't resist taking the opportunity while he slept to write her name and the word 'mine' over his skin. After the fourth time, he shifted and breathed in deeply before turning to face her wearing a sleepy smile.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"'s alright. What time is it?"

"Early," she replied without bothering to look around at the clock on her bedside table; she knew it was early morning by the small amount of sunlight streaming through the thin curtains covering the window over her bed. "Go back to sleep."

Scorpius's hand slipped over her hip and he pulled her close. "Don't want to." His lips brushed hers, lightly at first, but he quickly deepened the kiss. Without hesitation, she responded, running her hands through his hair, pulling his head as close as possible, and sucking his tongue into her mouth.

"Scorpius," she moaned, tearing her lips from his and shifting willingly onto her back when he reached up to stroke her breast. She responded immediately to his touch and arched into his mouth and hands as he continued licking and sucking his way down her body, pausing to lavish much desired attention to her breasts before teasingly lingering at her hipbone and finally moving between her thighs. She gasped loudly when his tongue touched her – rocking against his mouth, her hand in his hair, urging him not to stop, on the verge of orgasm within mere minutes – and gasped again in protest when he stopped and began working his way back up her incredibly sensitive and incredibly _ready_ body wearing a devilish grin.

_Two can play that game_, she thought, and she gripped his face when he tried to kiss her, not allowing him to, and instead running her tongue over and along his parted lips, savoring how she tasted on them, finally giving in to his continued attempts and kissing him vigorously once more.

He groaned when he moved inside her, and Rose raised her hips quickly to meet him, once again teetering on the edge. His mouth moved across her cheek to _that spot_ on her neck, just behind her ear. "I am, you know," she heard him mumble before he slid almost entirely out of her, and she struggled to catch her breath when he quickly thrust inside her once more.

"You…you're what?" she managed, but only barely; he was driving deeper into her with each stroke and every nerve in her body was on fire.

He slowed his movements, his eyes locking with hers as he withdrew once again, dipping his face down and brushing his lips against hers.

"I'm yours," he rasped as he buried himself forcefully inside her, and Rose was overcome with the depth of his words and the pleasure of their lovemaking and the intensity of her feelings, and she surrendered, wrapping her legs around his hips and grinding her body against his feverishly, overcome with the orgasm that had been threatening and finally culminated with Rose calling out his name along with that of several deities, a number of curses, and a jumble of incoherent mutterings.

Scorpius continued driving into her, and she shifted beneath him, raised her legs up to his waist, and grabbed his arse with her hands, digging her fingernails lightly into his skin. Within minutes, he was moving faster and breathing heavier, and when she sucked hard on the side of his neck, simultaneously worrying his skin between her teeth and soothing it with her tongue, she felt the muscles in his arse tense as he came, buried deeply inside her, and he practically growled her name before collapsing over her.

His breath was hot on her neck and he was heavier than she ever would have suspected, but Rose made no effort to move, not wanting him to move, and she held onto him when he made to move off of her.

"Too heavy," he muttered, and she shook her head.

"Not."

She sighed in disappointment when he rolled to her side anyway. He leaned up on one arm and slung the other across her waist to pull her close.

Their eyes locked and Scorpius smiled down at her as his fingers began tracing designs over her lower back. "D'you remember what you told me once – that people don't fall in love with what's right in front of them?"

Rose nodded, reaching up to brush the hair from his forehead. "Yes."

"You might ought to rethink that theory, don't you think?"

She felt his fingers move in an unmistakable pattern, and her breath caught as she nodded, an unconscious grin playing over her lips. She quickly tore her gaze from his, not wanting him to see the tears welling up in her eyes, and concentrated her attention on her hand, which had come to rest on his chest and her fingers threading through the blond hairs, before focusing again on his face and conceding, "I suppose I should, shouldn't I?"

_Written for __**drcjsnider**__, who, way back at the end of September, really just wanted a drabble, but her prompts always seem to make me want to write more. And those prompts were: _

_Rose/Scorpius - Use any of the following Buffy quotes... (I like the surprise)_

_1. "All I did was hold you and watch you sleep. And it was the best night of my life." _

_2. "I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you." _

_3. "People don't fall in love with what's right in front of them. People want the dream -- what they can't have. The more unattainable, the more attractive."_


End file.
